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Voice for Real Estate 73: Tech Disrupters, Flood CFA, Virtual Brokers

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How should organized real estate respond when tech giants like Amazon and Facebook pour billions of dollars into creating real estate platforms? NAR Leadership wants to ensure REALTORS® stay well ahead of where technology is going. The latest Voice for Real Estate video looks at that and also NAR's Call for Action on flood insurance, the growth of virtual brokers, the latest scam to hit real estate, and how REALTORS® can be heroes to homebuyers who are looking for green home features.

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Transcript

A call for action on flood insurance!

And will a brand new scam – target you?

These stories and more on The Voice for Real Estate

Hi, I’m Stephen Gasque with the National Association of REALTORS®

Our lead story today – technology has had a massive impact on the way you promote properties, generate leads, and market your business. And change isn't slowing down. Major technology companies are pouring billions into the real estate sector. NAR President-elect Elizabeth Mendenhall and NAR CEO Goldberg took to the podium last week, at the 2018 Leadership Summit in Chicago, to frame the challenges REALTORS® face.

A call for action on flood insurance is on the way. NAR is working to get legislation passed in the House…and then the job turns to the Senate. But lawmakers have to work quickly, because federal flood insurance expires at the end of September. If that happens, thousands of transactions every day won’t be able to close. NAR Deputy Chief Lobbyist Jamie Gregory has more.

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As a REALTOR®, expect a message from NAR President William Brown asking you to send a letter to your member of Congress. Be sure to look for that message so you can help head off a major disruption in home sales this fall.

[SWOOSH]

Many consumers are taking an interest in energy efficiency. And for you? That means an expanded role as a real estate professional. That’s just one of the messages to come out of the NAR’s sustainability summit. The summit brought together experts from all over the country to help you get a sense of what’s in store for homes and communities as sustainability in the home takes off. Suzanne Shelton, president and CEO of the Shelton Group in Knoxville, Tenn., said REALTORS® can be heroes to their clients by staying up on what consumers want in homes.

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You can see how sustainability fits into consumer demand for homes on nar.realtor by searching “2017 sustainability report.”

[SWOOSH]

A question for brokers: where is tomorrow’s competition coming from? Many brokers say it will come from virtual brokerages. These are brokerage that don’t have a fixed address…so instead their agents work remotely. Right now, only between 5 and 10 percent of the competition comes from virtual brokerages, according to findings from NAR’s 2017 Profile of Real Estate Brokers, which just came out. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but 50 percent of brokers say they expect virtual brokers to be their competitors in the years ahead. Here’s NAR’s Jessica Lautz with more.

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Access the report by searching “2017 Profile of Real Estate Firms” on nar.realtor.

[SWOOSH]

And today – we have a scam alert – for you.
It’s a texting scam that’s going around the real estate industry…using NAR’s name. In one of the scams, real estate professionals receive a fake NAR text that says they owe a fine because of an ethics violation. Another poses as an NAR announcement that they’ve won a car or a TV. Don’t believe it.

Instead, before you get a text like that, learn how to protect yourself! Just search “text scam alert” on nar.realtor. That page also links you to NAR resources to help you protect yourself from these and other scams that are becoming unfortunate everyday realities, in real estate.

[SWOOSH]

And that’s our show for the week of August 21. You can get more on everything we talked about at The Voice for Real Estate page on nar.realtor. Thank you for joining us and be sure to join us again as we bring you the latest news on The Voice for Real Estate.